THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507210018
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
The United States has had one of the best health-delivery systems in the world with the best techonology.
However, in the present managed-care system, today's primary-care doctors are being paid not to treat patients and not to refer to specialists and do as little as they can to take care of the patients!
Under the present managed-care system, the doctors are allocated a certain amount of funds to take care of a certain number of patients. If any specialist or other practitioner sees those patients and orders tests or performs surgery on those patients, this money is taken out of their capitation payments.
I would rather have someone taking care of me who was being paid to take care of me rather than being paid not to take care of me. Under the present system, primary-care doctors have financial incentives not to order expensive tests and not to treat with referrals and consultations with specialists. They also must try to keep the patients out of the hospitals because this again hurts the primary-care doctor financially.
The insurance industry has totally gained control of health-care delivery in the United States and even dictates treatments the patient is to receive and how long they are to stay in the hospital.
If we continue going down the road with the managed-care systems, although we have the best technology in the world, we will certainly not be able to receive it because of the cost involved. We will ``not qualify,'' especially if we are over 65 and retired and not contributing to the coffers of Social Security and Medicare anymore. The insurance companies will not permit it and Medicare will not permit it. The end result is obvious. We will not be able to obtain the latest medical care and technology that is available.
T. W. MOSTILER, DDS
Norfolk, July 5, 1995 by CNB